Out in the field, they listened for a moment. There was no sound from the house, and the dim light in the windows of the kitchen seemed almost a reproach, so little did it hint of what was afoot. Anybody, looking at it, might have thought they were sitting in the kitchen. There was no wind, and in the still air they could hear the noise of dance music. There was a bright glow in the sky from a bonfire on the shore by the steamer pier. Now and again a rocket soared into the night; and, though there was rising ground between themselves and Rio, they could almost see the crowds skating in Rio Bay. They were hot going to skate themselves. That, they had decided, would be the same thing as sailing at night. Sleeping in the Fram was somehow different.
Peggy set off up the field track to get into the road. The others followed. The moon was shining, full and clear, over the top of the fells, and threw their shadows behind them on the snow. Peggy turned to make sure that they were close behind.
“Shiver my timbers!” she said. “A real smuggling night. Isn’t it a pity Nancy isn’t here. But she’d be making us slink in the shadow of the walls.”
“No need,” said John.
“We may meet Mrs Jackson,” said Susan almost hopefully.
But Mrs Jackson was far away, trying to remember what were trumps; and everybody who was not indoors was down in Rio Bay, with the torches and the bonfires, listening to the music, skating or watching the skaters. The explorers met nobody at all. They came out in the road at the top of the field, turned right, and trudged along three abreast now, with their overstuffed knapsacks bulging on their backs.
“Nancy’ll never believe we’ve done it,” said Peggy.
“Those two never do wake,” said Susan. “At least Titty never does. Does Roger?”
“He wakes early enough in the morning,” said John.
Peggy comforted them. “We’ll start back as soon as it’s light,” she said. “They’ll be all right even if they do wake. And they won’t. They were half asleep before they’d done their supper.”
“We’ll meet the Jacksons milking when we come in,” said Susan.
“Who cares?” said Peggy. “Jib-booms and bob-stays! Who cares? We’ll have done it then. And anyhow, it isn’t as if it was anything wrong.”
The others said nothing in answer to this.
They came to the open gateway into the wood above Houseboat Bay. On the cart track between the trees they could no longer walk abreast. Peggy went first. She was not content with herself. Nancy, she felt sure, would be carrying the thing through in a much more lively spirit. She began to sing:
“Oh, it’s my delight of a shiny night
In the season of the year.”
But she could remember only the chorus, and the others did not join in. She walked faster and faster, beginning to be afraid that they might even now draw back. But they hurried after her, and in a few minutes left the criss-cross shadows of the bare trees and came out on the open shore. There was the lake, and the moonlight pouring down on the white hills on the farther side. And there, out in the bay, lay the Fram, dark and motionless, frozen in the Arctic ice.
All three of them cheered up wonderfully at the sight of her.
“Pretty gorgeous,” said John. “Come on, Susan.” He set out over the ice, sliding his feet as if he were on skis. He came to the houseboat, reached up on deck and got hold of the ladder. A minute later all three of them had climbed up, and he and Susan were waiting while Peggy fumbled with the key. Standing up there in the moonlight on the deck of the Fram, with ice all round, and the snow mountains in the distance (there was no need to look at the wooded shores of the bay, and the glow above the Rio bonfires and torches might well be Northern lights), it was easy to believe that they were indeed in the Arctic, and a thousand miles from any other human beings.
They went in, after a short struggle with the door, which had frozen as usual and would not open at first even when it had been unlocked. Peggy lit the lantern. Susan stirred up the stove. The cabin was warm and the lantern made it cheerful at once. They slipped off the knapsacks and dumped them on one of the settees.
“Look here,” said John, “we simply can’t go to bed right away. What can you do in the cooking line, Mister Mate?”
“What about cocoa?” said Peggy. “We’ve got half a tin left of that cocoa and milk.”
“Well, it’s easy enough to get ready,” said Susan.
“And jolly good,” said John.
There was plenty of water left aboard from the last water-carrying expedition to the beck. Susan filled the kettle and put it on the stove, while Peggy went to the store cupboard. (It was always Peggy’s job to deal with Captain Flint’s stores. After all, he was her uncle, not Susan’s.) John sat by the stove, looking at the pictures in Dick’s astronomy book which, by some accident, had been left behind on the cabin table. Anybody who had looked into the cabin at that moment would have said that everything was going well.
And then, suddenly, Peggy knew that everything was going very badly. She had been triumphant, thinking of the answer she would be able to send to Nancy in the morning. “Who was sleeping in the Fram?” “All the leaders of the expedition.” And then she had caught sight of John’s face, as he looked up from the astronomy book which, indeed, he hardly saw. John had imagined his mother sitting down with them in the cabin of the Fram to take a cup of cocoa in the Arctic; and instantly he had almost heard her words, “What have you done with those young ones?” John looked at Susan and knew that she, too, was unhappy. Susan looked at John. Peggy looked from one to the other of them. Cheerfulness was gone.
It might have been different if the kettle had boiled smartly, and they had been able to have their hot cocoa at once. But the kettle was in no sort of hurry. It was never as quick on the stove as it was on the Primus, and tonight, as if on purpose, it seemed to take longer than usual.
“Isn’t the beast ever going to boil?” said Peggy at last. “I don’t believe it wants to. Let’s pump up the Primus and hurry it along.”
“Look here, Peggy,” said Susan, her mind made up. “It’s no good. John and I have just got to go back. We can’t leave Titty and Roger alone all night. But you’ll be all right, if you want to stay. You can lock yourself in, you know.”
This was worse than anything she had expected. Peggy no longer felt at all like Captain Nancy, shivering timbers and afraid of nothing. It was all right with John and Susan, but to sleep alone in the houseboat on the frozen lake was altogether too much of a good thing.
“But that isn’t what Nancy wants,” she said. “She wants us all to be here, sleeping all round the cabin.”
“Well, we can’t,” said Susan. “John thinks just the same.”
Peggy looked at John, but John knew very well that he agreed with Susan, and Peggy could see that he knew it.
“Anyway, you’ve been here in the dark,” said John. “And in the real Arctic it’s dark night and day in winter. There’s no point in being here at any particular time. And what does it matter where we sleep?”
“Don’t let’s bother about this wretched cocoa,” said Susan. “It’s never going to boil tonight. It’ll be all right for tomorrow. We’ll have it when we come in the morning.” She jumped up. “It’s a jolly good thing we didn’t unpack our blankets and make our beds. Those blankets are an awful job to get into the knapsacks.”
It was perfectly clear that John and Susan were bound for Holly Howe. Peggy gave in.
“Nancy’ll be pleased about our coming down by moonlight,” she said. “But she’ll think the Fram’s wasted all the same.”
Susan closed down the draught in the little stove.
“It’ll be out by morning,” she said, “but it doesn’t matter. We’ve got lots of firewood for starting it again.”
John took down the lantern and blew it out. There was no light in the Fram but the moonlight through the windows. A cold breath came in as he opened the door.
“Come on,” said Susan.
Peggy locked the door beh
ind them. They dumped the knap-sacks overboard, climbed down by the ladder and pushed it up on deck again. On the ice, in the moonlight, they helped each other on with their burdens, and set off homewards, in a hurry now, and oddly cheerful.
“Hullo!” said John, as they were leaving the Fram behind them. “What’s that?”
“Where?”
“Moving,” said John. “On the ice. Coming this way.”
“Oh!” Peggy caught her breath. What was it? There was certainly something moving on the ice, close under the woods that came down to the shores of the bay.
“It isn’t,” cried Susan. “Yes, it is. It’s those two brats. We ought never to have gone out.”
*
Roger did not know what waked him. For a moment he lay quiet. Then, suddenly, he felt the emptiness in the room.
“John!” he said.
There was no answer. It was on the other side of the house that the moon was rising; but, even so, because of all the snow on the ground, there was enough light in the room for Roger to see that John’s bed looked somehow whiter than usual. In grabbing the blanket, Susan had flung back the patterned quilt and had not put it back.
“John!” called Roger again, and skipped out of bed and ran across the floor. John’s bed was empty. But the candlestick was on the table beside it, and the matches too. Roger decided that this was one of the occasions when a rule might properly be broken. He struck a match and lit the candle. Yes, the bed was certainly empty. John was not there, nor were his clothes. Roger opened the door to the landing, stepped out, and listened for a moment. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. He could hear the loud slow ticking of the clock in the kitchen, and was startled by the sudden rattle as a chain settled itself on one of the cogwheels. He remembered what that noise was; and, listening again, to make sure that he could hear nothing but the clock, ran across the cold planking to the room that was shared by Susan and Titty. He opened the door and went in, shielding his candle with one hand. What was this? Susan’s bed empty too? Titty, in the bed opposite, lifted her head from the pillow and blinked at him sleepily.
“Roger,” she said, “what’s the matter?”
“Where’s the captain and the mate?”asked Roger.
Titty raised herself up on her elbows, flung her hair out of her eyes, and looked at Susan’s empty bed.
“Talking to Peggy, I expect,” she said.
“But I can’t hear anybody at all,” said Roger. “Listen!”
Titty hopped out of bed and pushed her feet into her slippers.
“I’m going to see if Peggy’s asleep,” she said.
Together they tiptoed out on the landing. There was not a sound in the farm except that of the steady old clock downstairs in the kitchen. They opened Peggy’s door, quietly, listening for her breathing. There was not a sound. They went in. The light of Roger’s candle showed them that Peggy had fairly torn her bed to pieces in getting out the blanket she had wanted. But she was not there.
“They’ve all gone off to sleep in the Fram after all,” said Titty.
“The beasts,” said Roger.
“Perhaps they made up their minds after we’d gone to sleep,” said Titty, “and they thought they’d better not wake us.”
THE FRAM IN THE MOONLIGHT
“Well, we’re awake now, anyhow,” said Roger. “Come on. Let’s catch them up.”
“They may be just lurking in the kitchen,” said Titty. “Bring your candle.”
Titty first, followed by Roger holding the candlestick, slipped down the dark stairs, to find the lamp low in the kitchen, the fire banked up, and not a sign of the others.
“They can’t have gone anywhere else,” said Titty. “Bother it all. I wish we hadn’t gone to sleep so soon.”
“Well, let’s go after them,” said Roger.
“If Susan’s there, it’ll be all right,” said Titty.
“It won’t take two minutes to get dressed,” said Roger. “No washing to do. And no teeth.”
“Well,” said Titty, “don’t go and forget your muffler or anything. And give me a light while I get Susan’s candle lit.”
“Shall we want a lantern?” said Roger.
“We’ve got torches,” said Titty, “and there’s lots of moon.”
A very few minutes later they blew out the two candles, and left them where they had found them by the beds of the captain and the mate. With the help of their torches they hurried down into the kitchen, found their boots, had the usual struggle with the latch, and opened the farm-house door into the winter night.
The dog, disturbed a second time, came hurrying from the shippen. To be called a good dog by Roger did not satisfy it so well as to be tickled under the chin by John, and it had barked once, shaking them to their very marrows, before Titty quieted its suspicions. Very doubtfully it watched them through the gate, and stayed in the yard while they climbed the track up the snow-covered field. Then, for some queer reason of its own, it turned melancholy, lifted its head, and howled at the moon – long, drawn-out, dismal wails. “Wolves,” said Titty; and then, feeling Roger close beside her, she added, “But of course it isn’t. We know it’s only old Ringman.” All the same, whatever doubts they may have felt about the journey before them, that dismal howling in the yard made it easier to go forward than to turn back.
They felt better when they had got into the high road and hurried cheerfully along until they came to the turning down into the wood. The narrow track, white with snow and laced with the blue shadows of the trees, daunted them for a moment. They could see for only such a little way along it.
“What if they aren’t there at all?” said Roger.
“But they are,” said Titty, “and anyway we’ve got our torches.”
Torches, even on a moonlit night, count for something.
And just then they heard Ringman at Holly Howe, baying at the moon again. Without another word they plunged into the wood. After those awful howls, the cry of an owl, close at hand, though it startled them, was somehow comforting.
“Remember the owl John did at Beckfoot when the Amazons were escaping from the Great aunt?” said Titty.
“Yes,” said Roger, “and Peggy’s duck when someone dropped an oar.”
At last, through the trees ahead of them, they could see a yellow glimmer; and a moment later, when they came out on the shore, the lit windows of the houseboat told them they had guessed aright.
“They’re there all right,” said Titty. “I knew they must be. Look out while we’re getting on the ice. These stones are most horribly slippery.”
“They’ve gone and put the light out,” said Roger.
Dim and dead in the moonlight, the house boat looked altogether uninhabited. It was hard to believe that only a moment before they had seen those cheerful windows.
“They’ve probably just this minute settled down to sleep,” said Titty.
“We’ll wake them up,” said Roger. “I say, Titty, we never brought any blankets. That’s what they’d been doing with their beds.”
“Botheration!” said Titty. “Never mind. There are lots of sheepskins.”
“Let’s give them a shout,” said Roger.
“A hail,” said Titty. “Both together.”
“Fram, ahoy!”
A faint “Hullo” came back to them.
“There’s something coming over the ice,” said Roger, stopping suddenly. “Bears!”
Against the dark hull of the houseboat, they had not seen the elders climb down to the ice. A little cloud, for the first time that night, veiled the face of the moon, and, for a moment, they stopped short. Then the moon shone out again, and they knew those dim, shapeless moving things for what they were.
“It’s them!” cried Titty, almost thankfully.
“Pretty good bears,” said Roger. “Hi! Susan! Hullo!”
“What on earth are you two doing out here?” said Susan. “We left you tucked up in bed.”
“We were coming to the Fram,” said Titty.
&nb
sp; “You ought to have stayed in bed,” said Susan. “We’re on our way home.”
“But what did you go there for?” asked Roger.
“We thought you had gone there to sleep,” said Titty.
“Quick march!” said Susan. “You ought to be asleep now. You may get no end of a cold coming out of your warm beds like this. Skip along.” And, indeed, she set such a pace that everybody was rather short of breath for talking long before they had come up through the wood and out again on the high road.
They were hurrying along the road when they saw two figures black against the snow, going down the field towards the farm.
“It’s the Jacksons,” said John.
“Hurry up!” said Susan, and the whole party broke into a run. Ringman’s melancholy howling turned suddenly to delighted barking as the Jacksons came to the yard. There he was, leaping round them in the moonlight. The five explorers, very much out of breath, caught them up just as Mr Jackson was closing the yard gate.
“Eh, what’s this?” said Mrs Jackson. “And you not in bed. This is no time to go walking, though a grand night it is and no mistake. But what would your mother say to me if she knew?”
“We’ll be in bed in two minutes,” said Peggy.
She, John and Susan took their chance, and hurried through into the house, to get their knapsacks out of sight and upstairs. Nobody wanted to have to talk about blankets.
“Why did Ringman howl like that?” asked Roger.
“Got a friend in the moon likely,” said Mr Jackson.
“Did you have a nice time at the party?” asked Titty.
“Well,” said Mrs Jackson, “I never did hear the beat of that. Off to bed with you. But I don’t wonder folk can’t sleep these nights with all the noise they make with their skating in the bay.”